That is, don’t pull that (mostly metaphorical) lever for any candidate in any race where you don’t know enough about the candidates to make a reasonable decision.

Don’t vote for the candidate who matches your race or sex, or the candidate whose race or sex you believe is underrepresented.

Don’t vote for the candidate about whom you saw an ad on TV last night that they hate women or want babies to die or whatever wild accusations in scare-filter mode that may or may not be true.

Don’t vote for a candidate solely because they have an R or a D behind their name, if that’s all you know about them.

Don’t vote to retain judges just because, surely, they wouldn’t have become a judge without being a good guy.

It is not necessary to vote in every race. Even if you haven’t been able to educate yourself on the candidates, even if you feel that the prospect of doing so is more than you have the capacity for, with competing work and family obligations, you can consider yourself to have done your civic duty if you show up at your polling place, even if you leave some or even most of the races blank.